Since You Asked: Who are you people, anyway?!?

Sunday

May 20, 2007 at 12:01 AM

In appreciation of the staff at Since You Asked ... thanks for the enrichment and giggles in your enlightening, occasionally useless (with all due respect), and informative contributions to society. Perhaps you've addressed this already, but who are you guys? Will you tell your readers more about your Since You Asked team?

In appreciation of the staff at Since You Asked ... thanks for the enrichment and giggles in your enlightening, occasionally useless (with all due respect), and informative contributions to society. Perhaps you've addressed this already, but who are you guys? Will you tell your readers more about your Since You Asked team?

Along with my daily coffee, thanks for the routine Since You Asked fix.

— Cyndi P., Yreka, Calif.

We are many and we are one. But it all starts with you, Cyndi, our adoring fan, faithful reader and eternal questioner. Without you, we would be nothing. Now we're getting verklempt!

Our squadron of Since You Asked Answerers are normal people like yourself who have been ruined by several years spent in dank newsrooms. I mean, really ... have you ever taken the tour? You're safer visiting that zoo exhibit everyone talks about — you know, the scat-flinging monkeys? Actually our keepers have provided a clean, well-lit place here, and we're on our best behavior around guests (we're potty-trained now).

As for the Since You Asked editor himself, well, there are many like him but this one is ours. He is an odd creature ... and by that we mean, like, half human and half wild thing. He used to wear a tie and work at a desk in the newsroom, living out a normal, unstoried life consuming pop culture, purchasing durable goods and practicing good personal hygiene. But upon discovering that Germans really do, in fact, love David Hasselhoff, he disappeared. Mysteriously, he continued producing his own Since You Askeds, editing those researched by reporters and processing his usual quota of news copy. So nobody really missed him.

He was found a couple years later (had to sign up for a mandatory company Christmas white elephant gift exchange) when IT guys followed his IP address to a burrow dug out of the concrete under the Mail Tribune's massive printing press. (He burrowed deeper upon discovering Günther and the Sunshine Girls on You Tube recently — he's down to bedrock now.)

There he thrives on a steady modern media diet washed down with a daily smoothie of pureed Canadian newsprint (high fiber!), the Mail Tribune's finest CMYK inks (they're soy based and fermented in casks of Southern Oregon white oak!), five shots of espresso and an irony vitamin supplement. Oh, and his grandmother stirs in a spoonful of honey "to sweeten him up."

Frankly, Cyndi, we're all unemployable anywhere else. So, unless you want us unleashed upon the world, for God's sake keep buying and reading newspapers. Who knows what semantic carnage we might wreak without a mission to answer your questions!

Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to youasked@mailtribune.com.

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